ANC2F Urges Bowser to Remove Hold from Franklin School Project

At its regular monthly meeting last night (February 4), Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2F/Logan Circle voted unanimously to send a letter to Mayor Bowser asking her to allow the redevelopment of the Franklin School (13th and K Streets NW) to move forward.

Franklin School in 2013

"This delay is really unfortunate for our neighborhood," said ANC Commissioner Kevin Deeley (district 08). The Franklin School is in Deeley's ANC district.

The Washington City Paper reported last week that the Mayor had pulled the land disposition agreement for the Franklin School from the DC Council "due to concerns over lackluster fundraising for the project." The project plans to turn the site into a contemporary art gallery and museum called the Institute for Contemporary Expression (ICE).

"The mayor has taken this bill off the calendar," said Deeley.

Deeley also made the motion to ask Bowser to reconsider. He noted the "fund raising troubles cited in the media" but said no one, including the Bowser administration, had presented any evidence to support the contention that the project could not raise money.

Deeley also noted that the building had been vacant for seven years, and the current process of disposition of the school was in its fifth year. It had been discussed at the ANC at least seven different times, he said, before the ANC voted to endorse two of the four proposals for the site, including the ICE proposal.

Franklin School was one of five projects approved toward the end of former Mayor Vincent Gray's tenure which will now be reexamined by the new administration -- see articles from the Washington Business Journal here and the blog Urban Turf here.